This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Interior designer Jackie Glass renovates her temporary trailer home

Makeover creates a modern, light-filled space near couple’s real home undergoing a major renovation on the Niagara Escarpment

Interior designer Jackie Glass and her husband Barry added a peel-and-stick backsplash from Home Depot to their trailer’s kitchen, and brought in a wood-topped cart from Ikea for food prep. (Karen Kirk)

NOW: The kitchen island overlooks the trailer's living area, where fabrics from JFFabrics make up the cushions and ottoman. (Karen Kirk)

THEN: The trailer’s living area, where “there was a lot of brown,” says interior designer Jackie Glass. (Karen Kirk)

NOW: A light, white bedroom has easily and affordably been attained with some paint and fresh linens. (Karen Kirk)

Jackie Glass, an experienced interior designer, knows every renovation comes with unexpected, often unwelcome, surprises. So when she undertook an addition to the 2,000-square-foot bungalow that she bought last year, she insisted on being close to the site — a 5.2-hectare “dream property” on the Niagara Escarpment.

“When something happens that needs an answer, as it frequently does, you have to be there to manage it,” she says.

The challenge was there were no short-term (four to six months) rentals in nearby Beamsville, Ont. “Even if I had found a place there I would have been driving out all the time,” says Glass.

So instead of searching any further, she and her husband Barry decided to buy a trailer as temporary accommodation.

“We went out on the coldest day of the winter to an RV place,” says Glass. “Even the people who worked there did not want to go outside. They told us just to go out and look around, that all the prices were on tables.”

Article Continued Below

Perhaps it was the cold, but Glass chose quickly, and a Forest River Salem trailer was brought to the lot in April.

Making it attractive and functional was accomplished over just a few weekends.

Most of the work involved planning and organizing. “We took out every single cupboard and hinge in the kitchen,” says Glass. “I had different shades of paint, and spent a lot of time numbering the cabinets so the painters would know that, for example, cabinets 11 to 17 were to be a certain colour, and so on.”

While the interior design of the trailer was, says Glass, “very well thought out,” its colour scheme did not fit her design aesthetic, which runs to light tones and clean lines. “There was a lot of brown in there!”

Bringing light into the trailer was a priority, so the entire interior was painted in Benjamin Moore’s Silver Satin. A soft grey with a high light-reflecting value, it brightened the 460 square-foot space.

LED lighting was added along the length of the trailer. Other than mini blinds and sheers in the bedroom — windows were left untreated.

Crisp black window frames stand out against the muted grey of the walls.

“It gives it a bit of a yacht feel,” says Glass. “And it’s funny, but the window frames in the house are going to be black, so it’s interesting that the trailer is a small-scale version of what my house is going to be.”

Much of the furniture came from the unit Glass keeps for items for design projects. “I would lie awake at night and think about what I needed, and then ‘shop’ for it in my storage. I swapped out the ugly old swivel chairs with more formal chairs in a soft linen, and had an ottoman reupholstered in velvet. I wanted it to be pretty.”

Storage is less of a problem than expected, says Glass. The pull-out sofa in the living area has drawers underneath, there are mirrored cabinets on either side of the bedroom with hanging shelves and there’s more storage under the bed.

Still, there are challenges inherent in downsizing, even temporarily, to such a small space. “Is it tight? Yes,” admits Glass. “Am I’m stressing? Not really! I guess I’m not really that much of a princess, after all.”

If all goes as planned, Glass should be in her new home by October. Originally, the plan was to sell the trailer after that. Now, asked about giving it up, Glass hesitates.

“Our friends are saying it’s so lovely, why not keep it? And it turns out there is this whole fascinating trailer world. So the jury is still out on that.”

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com